CHURCH DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE ENFORCED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 383, 18 June 1928, Page 14

CHURCH DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE ENFORCED

•‘REJECTION OF PRAYER BOOK WILL NOT LEAD TO DISESTABLISHMENT ‘"To say that the rejection of the revision of the Prayer Book will lead to chaos is a ridiculous overstatement. But the grave disorder which exists will continue untill the question of enforcing discipline is firmly handled.” Canon Percival James, at St. Mary’s Cathedral yesterday, took for the subject of his address the rejection of the Prayer Book. He declared that the House of Commons seemed to have done its best as referee in a complicated controversy. It was an exhibition of bad temper to abuse that referee and threaten disestablishment, which threat frightened no one. The rejection, said Canon James, was the work of Anglicans rather than Nonconformists. The Anglicans on the Conservative benches could have carried the measure against the opposition of the whole of the rest of the House, but only 47 per cent, of the Conservatives voted for the measure. The House of Commons knew well that the support for the measure in the Church Assembly this year was much less than it received last year. The majority in the Assembly had decreased by 40 per cent., and the majority in the House of Clergy by nearly one-half. Moreover, the Anglo-Catho-lic party had declared plainly that the book was not acceptable to them, and that they desired the postponement of revision. DECISIVE REJECTION “This second rejection seems decisive for a time,” said Canon James. “The result will be that the centre of gravity will be shifted back from revision to discipline. The root cause of this failure of 20 years’ work in revision has been the refusal of the English bishops to tackle the difficult problem of ecclesiastical discipline. Since revision began, the question of discipline has been shirked. “In 1906 the Royal Commission in Ecclesiastical Discipline insisted in its report that revision and the re-estab-lishment of discipline were mutually dependent, and must be undertaken together, and that it was essential ‘that obedience to the law should be required, and, if necessary, enforced by those who bear rule in the Church of England.’ “After 22 years the bishops had failed in most English dioceses to check flagrant illegalities. They now took the attitude that they had no intention of employing the coercive powers they possess, much less of staking for greater powers to enforce obedience upon recalcitrant clergymen. RULES OF COMMON SENSE • Of many deplorable things that have been said in this controversy, the silliest is that it is impossible, indeed wrong, to enforce obedience upon refractory officers of the Church. Reasonable discipline is essential to the very existence of a corporate society. The ordinary man cannot understand why the ordinary principle that, if ,a man wilfully disobeys his lawful superiors, he thereby forfeits his appointment, should not apply to clergymen. Why should clergymen be excepted from the rules of ordinary common sense' and ordinary morality? “In England the enforcement of discipline may require the reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts and a more constitutional method of episcopal government, so that the responsibility for discipline shall not rest upon the bishop personally, but upon the bishop in council. Bishops are not above the law.. “The bishops’ task is difficult. The Anglo-Catholic party is resolute, thoroughly organised and capably led. It wields formidable weapons, including an aggressive Press. The general opinion is that the bishops are afraid of it: they are always anxious regarding the supply of candidates for the ministry, and the Anglo-Catholic party posseses and controls nearly all the theological colleges in England. To that party almost all the concessions in the new book were made; they treated these concessions with scorn, as a sign of weakness.” Concluding. Canon James said the Church to-day needed another Archbishop Parker.